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8 & 10 cyl Bristol cars Type 407 onwards - restoration, repair, maintenance etc

411 series 1 handbrake

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Old 03-12-21, 12:37 PM
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Default 411 series 1 handbrake

Hi. Just had the handbrake pads replaced and wonder if anyone knows if there is any adjustment that can be made to the cable?
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Old 03-12-21, 01:59 PM
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I don't know about the 411 and I expect it's different but FWIW on my 408 the parking brake adjustment is done by a screw in each parking brake caliper that is accessible through the holes in the wheel rim. A very nice system that make it easy. I just did mine last week!

David

Last edited by dwomby; 03-12-21 at 08:37 PM.
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Old 03-12-21, 06:17 PM
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On my 410, there are two handbrake cables, one from each rear brake caliper. I have additional adjustment for the cables just to the rear of the handbrake lever. It’s accessible from inside the car by removing the carpet in between and to the rear of the front seats. You will see a small metal cover plate which also has to be removed.
Hope this helps.
Brian
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Old 04-12-21, 11:41 AM
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I also don’t know about the 411 but, as just been said, on the 410 lift the carpet behind the handbrake and remove the aluminium cover beneath it to expose a balance bar to the two handbrake cables which incorporates an adjustment, and here I quote the 410 handbook from memory "in the unlikely event of stretch in the handbrake cables".

Which may have been unlikely when the cars were built but unfortunately the only handbrake pads one can now buy off the shelf are faced with ridiculously hard material which requires a incredibly hard yank on the handbrake to have any effect at all, let alone pass the UK’s MOT test. So the likelihood now is that the cables are already stretched well beyond the scope of the adjustment.

I strongly recommend getting the pads refaced, specifying a soft material, rather than buying off the shelf, the improvement is remarkable
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Old 05-12-21, 12:12 PM
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Default 411 Handbrake adjustment

Hi. Thank you all for your useful replies! I shall have a look this week and see what can be done. Thanks again.
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Old 05-12-21, 04:33 PM
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Following on from my earlier posting; after overhauling and refurbishing my rear brakes and calipers earlier this year: the handbrake lever still operated on full travel. After removing both handbrake cables and check their condition, I found they were both very good; in fact they looked almost new. I suspect they had been made by one of the companies who make up various cables and presumably they were given the wrong dimensions.
After checking with a well known company who replicates brake and clutch cables etc. they were able to help but their time scale didn’t fit in with me.
As the existing cables were in good shape I decided to do a small and simple modification at the handbrake end, basically, I slacked off the adjust where the fork end is attached to the compensating lever and pulled back the outer sheathing to expose the inner cable behind the bracket that’s fixed to the prop shaft tunnel. I then took two nuts about the same diameter as the fitting on the end of the outer sheathing and cut through the depth of the nut on one side, this was then fed over the exposed inner cable and everything reassembled. This gave me about 5/16th of an inch extra adjustment which was more than enough to allow the correct number of notches on the handbrake to satisfy the MOT examiner.
While working on the car this afternoon, I took a photo to show precisely what I am trying to describe, see attached.
Brian
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File Type: jpg B97B8B3F-82E1-45D6-A624-F45CACD1EC60.jpg (500.5 KB, 17 views)
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Old 06-12-21, 10:38 AM
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Hello Dodd.Thanks for your very useful reply. I shall investigate further during thisvweek.
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